During World War II, Nazi Germany built a long line of coastal fortifications known as the Atlantic Wall.<\/p>\n
This line of fortifications began on the Atlantic coast of southern France<\/strong>, next to the border with Spain, and ended in northern Norway, running along the coastline of all the countries occupied by Hitler's armies. Norway was one of the most difficult countries to fortify<\/strong>, since it was the occupied country with the most kilometers of coastline. Furthermore, Norway is surrounded by small islands and fjords. In addition to large coastal batteries such as Austr\u00e5tt Fort<\/a> and Trondenes Fort<\/a>, the Germans planned other smaller batteries. In total, Nazi Germany built about 300 shore batteries in Norway<\/strong>.<\/p>\n One of those small batteries was Varnes Fort<\/strong> (designated HKB 22\/978 Varnes by the Wehrmacht). It was located in the town of Farsund<\/strong>, in the extreme south of the country, on the shores of the North Sea and in an area of great strategic importance. It was equipped with four 105 mm K332(f) Schneider guns from 1936<\/strong>, which had a range of 16,000 meters. The battery was in an area of cliffs located on the south side of the mouth of a fjord.<\/p>\n Two of the guns were installed in a bunker<\/strong>of the Regelbau R671 type, connected by tunnels to a command bunker, and the other two were in open positions. The Germans took 150 Russian and Dutch prisoners there<\/strong> for the construction of this battery. I have not been able to locate the start date of the construction of this battery, but at the end of the war, in 1945, it had not yet been finished and it did not participate in any combat<\/strong>. The two Schneider guns are still there, in their Regelbau R671 bunkers, 80 years later. A few days ago, Mobile Instinct<\/a> published a video exploring this battery:<\/p>\n
\n